Is Unbelief Possible?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I believe in many things.

Religion is not one of them.

I don't believe in religion. That shit fucked me up.

Really? I believe very strongly in religion, simply because it DOES fuck up so many people. There's not an ounce of truth in it, of course, but religion, as an institution, is as real as a fist in the teeth.

Boru

[Hezekiah]

This really does depend on who the person is. I myself "deconverted" (if you can count believing in 2000-year-old bedtime stories until I grew a brain even a religious belief at all) from Christianity at six years of age. And you know what, I find myself happier than I'd be able to imagine myself if I was religious.
The happiness comes from that weight and worry being lifted off my shoulders, doing whatever I want without worrying about the big guy upstairs. Sins don't exist, neither do worries of heaven or hell. You rot in the ground, the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out. Supporting things like stem-cell research and any sort of scientific, technological or cultural progression is great.

When I was a believer, one of the more common beliefs about atheists is that they did so in order to live immoral lives without guilt. (https://atheistforums.org/thread-20055.html)

Leading your life with your own morals is always neat, too.

Beliefs change depending on how stubborn we are, and whether we find one way of believing (or, in many of our cases, lacking any belief at all) better than another. I find it desirable, and in my opinion simply better. Of course, I'm talking about my own lack of/opposition to belief.

Thank you for being one of the Christians this anti-theist can respect, unlike those bible-thumpers that simply scream verses and scurry away.

This is honestly the most respectable and pleasurable discussion I've had about belief. And I thank you all for this! Sometimes discussion like this in the company of other religious folk tend to make me face-palm, or get frustrating for obvious reasons. So if anyone is to thank, its you!

[rossrocks88]

It's what is believed to be true. I don't know it to be true because I haven't seen evidence of or lack of god. It just seems absurd to think we all just happened in a matter of days.

[Cyberman]

That's why the only rational position is nonbelief. Gods are innocent of existing until proven otherwise.

[Anomalocaris]

(Just to preface my question, I'm a Christian, but I don't force my beliefs on anyone. I think that people have a right to believe whatever they want, and no religion or perspective should ever be forced on anyone. That said, healthy and honest discussion is what I hope to spark here in my post).

To me, belief seems to be unavoidable. If you stand for it, and will take it to your grave, you are putting belief into it. It doesn't matter what you believe, at all. Because no matter what, the end is death. The end is the same for everyone, and its high risk to believe in anything, something or nothing, or to not even be sure. It's all risk. I guess my question is, is it possible to get rid of belief, and if so, is it ultimately a desireable option?

You seem to slipperily lump you notion of religious faith with proposition built up from evidence and embraced accordingly together as "Belief". Is it intentional?

[Hezekiah]

My greatest fear is that general belief is a trap. That the person urns to trust his surronding or cling on to something, and truthfully there is nothing to cling to. That because there are bad beliefs, belief might be tainted. And anything tainted is imperfect, not reliable, or trustworthy. In other words, belief being a trap that has swallowed humanity for countless centuries.

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(Just to preface my question, I'm a Christian, but I don't force my beliefs on anyone. I think that people have a right to believe whatever they want, and no religion or perspective should ever be forced on anyone. That said, healthy and honest discussion is what I hope to spark here in my post).

To me, belief seems to be unavoidable. If you stand for it, and will take it to your grave, you are putting belief into it. It doesn't matter what you believe, at all. Because no matter what, the end is death. The end is the same for everyone, and its high risk to believe in anything, something or nothing, or to not even be sure. It's all risk. I guess my question is, is it possible to get rid of belief, and if so, is it ultimately a desireable option?

You seem to slipperily lump you notion of religious faith with proposition built up from evidence and embraced accordingly together as "Belief". Is it intentional?

Unintentional. My definition of belief is simple trust. My definition of faith is believing/trusting something that has no evidence. I may be walking a fine line between skepticism here.

[rexbeccarox]

Hez, have you made an intro thread? You should. It's not often we get such pleasant interactions with Christians, although when it does, we try to keep them around, so you should pull up a chair and stay awhile

[Hezekiah]

It's what is believed to be true. I don't know it to be true because I haven't seen evidence of or lack of god. It just seems absurd to think we all just happened in a matter of days.

I'm a Christian, and even I don't buy that the whole universe was created in a week from how we understand it. Especially since there weren't calendars back then(?). That doesn't seem very plausible.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in a God, just not entirely our current religious understanding of how creation came to be.

[Simon Moon]

Analytic philosophers of mind define belief as, "the psychological state in which one accepts a premise or proposition to be true". This seems to be the best working definition of belief that I've heard.

Using that definition, everyone has beliefs, because everyone accepts some premises and propositions to be true.

That being said, there are good reasons to believe premises, and bad reasons.

The single best method we've come up with for determining whether a premise should be accepted as true, is by basing beliefs on demonstrable evidence, reasoned argument and valid/sound logic. Nothing else comes close.

Faith fails on every level. Faith is not a path to truth. It is indistinguishable from gullibility.

[Hezekiah]

Hez, have you made an intro thread? You should. It's not often we get such pleasant interactions with Christians, although when it does, we try to keep them around, so you should pull up a chair and stay awhile

Thanks! I think I'm actually becoming quite comfortable on here! This is my first thread (if that's what you mean by intro thread but if not) how would I go about making an intro thread?